


Coming Alive

by steadypearlgiver



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 11:15:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4433399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steadypearlgiver/pseuds/steadypearlgiver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Planning on this to be a few chapters at least but we'll see where it goes! It's intended to be a zombie!Joniss but with a slight twist.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Planning on this to be a few chapters at least but we'll see where it goes! It's intended to be a zombie!Joniss but with a slight twist.

How could she be so dumb? She had turned her phone on silent the night before because her sister wouldn’t stop texting about her dreamy high school boyfriend and, as a result, she hadn’t heard any of the alarms she’d set for the next morning. Luckily for her she lives on campus and so far she’s only twenty minutes late to her morning lecture. Still, it’s not the best way to start off her sophomore year, showing up late only a month into classes. She’s in her first year of being a history major and while she loves it, the work load is more than she had anticipated. Three lectures and one research lab were added to her core classes and it’s going to take everything she has to keep her head above water this year.

She takes a shortcut through a small wooded path and stops mid step when she hears a piercing scream to her right, just behind the science building. Curiously, she takes a look in the direction of the scream and several seconds later sees two blonde upperclassman at a near sprint, running away from a third person who is moving at a much slower pace- are they limping? Katniss takes a few steps in the direction of the science building before she hears a blaring siren. The school intercoms. She has never heard a siren broadcast over the school’s system.

Unfortunately she has no time to dwell on the noise because just then, several more slowly moving people emerge from behind the various buildings and bushes surrounding her. Turning back towards the direction of her dorm, she finds herself face to face with what looks like the mangled, partially decomposed body of a young woman. The girl’s clothes are torn in multiple places and covered in blood. And her face….her face seems to be gushing with blood from her jaw. The half of the jaw that’s still attached that is.

Katniss bolts, running as fast as she can toward her dorm building, dodging a few walking corpses along the way. No- she has to stop that line of thought before it progresses. This sort of thing doesn’t happen outside of cheaply made horror movies and AMC programs.

Lost in her train of thought, she turns a sharp corner and slams into a shorter woman, almost throwing them both off balance. After gaining back her focus, she steps back and gets a good look at her…it. The first thing her eyes are drawn to is a long trail of dried blood dripping down from the other girl’s mouth. It pours onto her shirt and pulls her eyes down to her legs which look as if they’ve been torn apart. How can this creature even be standing in front of her? She chances another look into its face and is stunned by the bright red eyes that stare back at her menacingly. In her shock, Katniss almost doesn’t notice the fractured arms reaching toward her, and when she does, she panics and shoves the monster away from her, sending it toppling into the flower bed behind it and directly onto a bush.

“OW! What the fuck is wrong with you, asshole?!”

Katniss freezes. Did it just…did it just talk? Should it be able to do that? Yes, she’s only drawing information from the dozens of zombie movies she’s watched, but they shouldn’t be able to talk…should they?

She ventures a few steps forward, “Wh-what?”

The smaller girl glares up at her with her red eyes angrily. “I said what the fuck is wrong with you, dimwit?”

A rustling from the large bushes to their left gets both of the girls’ attention and a tall, bloodied man steps out. He looks down at the smaller zombie and immediately runs to her.  
“Jo! Johanna what happened? Are you ok?” Katniss recognizes this voice. It’s the same sugary sweet voice that she hears every night at work. Finnick, the bartender at the same restaurant she works at.

She looks down at the pair in confusion as he attempts to lift his friend to her feet.

“Finnick?” Katniss ventures. He looks over at her and his eyebrows lift to an almost comical height. “Katniss? What the hell happened? What are you doing-“, he attempts to ask before he’s cut off by his vocal friend.

“I’ll tell you what the hell happened, I just got a shrub up my ass because of this idiot here! Ow, _fuck_  be careful!” Finnick rolls his eyes and clamps a mouth over the thrashing girl before directing his attention back to Katniss.

“Ok what exactly is going on here? You look…disgusting.” Katniss tells him.

“Aw thanks Kitty Kat you look great yourself.” he shoots her his tip-earning smile and she rolls her eyes, “What do you mean what’s going on today is the zombie crawl.” Katniss stares at him in complete confusion and he gives her an astonished look. “Wait, are you serious? Katniss, how could you have possibly missed all of the flyers, they’re literally on every door on campus?! It’s the zombie crawl that the student association put together. The theater kids did the makeup, the nursing students have a tent set up to ‘treat victims’?” Make up? Wow those special effects majors really know what they’re doing. Now that she takes a closer look, she can see that Finnick has some fake bruises that aren’t fully shaded in. His friend however, her makeup is unreal. She almost can’t distinguish what’s real from the ghoul in front of her.

“I didn’t know…” Katniss vaguely remembers a lot of flyers around campus, but she never reads them, they’re usually about greek mixers and tutoring sessions. Oh no, she must look like an idiot right now, running for her life thinking- thinking what, there was a damn zombie apocalypse going on? The slightly bruised zombie girl in her coworker’s arms seems to be able to read her thoughts and wrestles out of Finnick’s grasp for a brief moment.

“You seriously thought this was all real?! How brainless can you be-“, Finnick slaps a hand over her mouth again and looks at Katniss with a mix of pity and amusement. She’s never gonna live this down after he tells their mutual friends at work.

“Sorry Kat, I really just need to get her back to her room and have her calm down for a while, but I’ll see you at work later?”

“Yeah. I am so sorry, really I had no idea. I’m just…so sorry.”

The zombie (Johanna, was that her name?) rolls her eyes again at Katniss and throws a few more colorful words in her direction as Finnick drags her kicking away.

XXXX

It’s about nine o’clock that night when the dinner rush finally slows down and Katniss finds herself walking in the direction of the bar. When she arrives, she finds Finnick scrubbing a few wine glasses behind the bar. She clears her throat to get his attention and when he looks up to see her he smirks.

“I figured you’d be over here sooner or later, what’s up?”

Katniss awkwardly fidgets and looks at the floor. She hates being wrong, especially about something so absurd. But she can’t stop thinking about this morning. Of course she feels horrible for what happened, but more than that she can’t stop thinking about this Johanna girl. Normally she’d be able to get over something like this fairly quickly but on top of the extreme embarrassment she feels, there’s something else she can’t exactly describe.

Katniss wills herself to look at Finnick before she speaks. “Well, I was just wondering how your friend is doing. The one from earlier? I feel pretty bad about hurting her.”

Finnick only laughs. “You feel bad? She fell ass first onto a bush I think she might win.” Katniss only blushes at his teasing and feels worse. He chuckles softly at her expression before continuing. “I’m only kidding Kat, she’ll be fine she’s just a little sore, and technically you didn’t hurt her, the bush did.” He laughs again as she rolls her eyes. “But you know, if you feel that badly about it you could always apologize to her yourself.”

Katniss feels her eyes widen. “Maybe that’s not the best idea. She didn’t seem like she was very interested in hearing my apologies.”

Finnick stares at her for a long moment as he dries his hands on a towel. He gives her a curious look and pulls a pen out from his pocket. He gives it a click and begins to write on a napkin and when he’s done, he holds it out for her. She hesitates before taking it from his hand and looks down to find a cell number with the name Johanna Mason written underneath.

“I’ll let her know to expect a text from you.” Finnick says with a wink.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's chapter two finally! I've also made some slight changes to chapter one, adding some background mostly. Hope you like it, let me know what you think so far!

Katniss glances over at her phone for the third time in the last five minutes. She’s been trying to read this paragraph on Ancient Mesoamerica for a while now and has had to start over several times. She had planned on getting a jump start on one of her midterm assignments, but now that she’s sitting here in front of her outline and a large stack of textbooks, she’d rather curl up to watch a movie and go to bed for the night.

With a frustrated sigh, she finally gives in and grabs her phone. She types out a quick message and within a minute receives a reply.

_Johanna: Well hello to you too, Brainless. How are you this fine evening?_

Katniss reads the message and rolls her eyes at Johanna’s nickname for her that stuck ever since she first coined it two weeks ago. She laughs to herself and shakes her head as she replies.

_Katniss: I would be a lot better if this midterm paper weren’t taunting me._

_Johanna: Studying again? Silly me, I should’ve known_

Johanna and Katniss had been texting for a little over two weeks now, ever since Katniss had gotten Johanna’s number from a coworker to apologize for throwing her into some shrubs. The dramatic misunderstanding on Katniss’ part had been hard for her to get past, but after the initial embarrassment had waned and Johanna had stopped teasing her for it, the girls had become surprising new friends. Katniss had learned a lot about Johanna in the time that they had been texting. She had learned that Johanna is a graduate student who is majoring in forestry and has been interning for an urban forestry co-op since the end of summer. She’s learned about how Johanna grew up in the nearby mountains with her large family, and Katniss had also learned how flustered she becomes when Johanna teases her in the slightly flirtatious way she does.

Katniss feels her phone vibrate again and reads the new message from Johanna.

_Johanna: You should take a study break before you bore yourself to death._

Katniss glances at her clock and notices it’s already past nine o’clock and realizes Johanna is right. There’s really no rush on this paper and the school is going into a four day weekend anyway, so she really should give herself a break for a change.

_Katniss: Well luckily for me I plan on taking a pb &j break soon._

_Johanna: What you need tonight is pizza. With me. At Flick’s._

Katniss freezes as she reads Johanna’s text. Flickerman’s is the hole in the wall pizza place in town that has some of the best pizza Katniss has ever had. But as much as she and Johanna have texted over the last couple of weeks, they’ve never actually met to hang out. Not that she would mind hanging out with Johanna, but if she’s being honest with herself, the thought is a little intimidating and makes her more than a little nervous. The last time she saw Johanna, the older girl was covered in gory makeup and cursing Katniss’ general existence.

_Johanna: I’m officially taking your silence as a yes, what time would you like me to pick you up?_

At this latest text from Johanna, Katniss finds her courage, takes a deep breath and quickly replies.

_Katniss: I’ll meet you there at 10._

 

XXXX

 

Forty minutes later Katniss is sitting in a booth towards the back of the small restaurant, sipping her soda and trying to focus on the conversation. Johanna is sitting across from her and Katniss is having a hard time focusing on what the woman is saying. She finds instead that she can’t stop studying the way Johanna’s lips move when she talks and the way her stomach feels when Johanna’s eyes lock with hers. Wait, why is Johanna just staring at her with that beautiful smirk on her face? Oh shit, she asked a question didn’t she?

“I’m sorry, what?” Katniss asks as she tries to dodge Johanna’s amused gaze.

When Johanna fails to respond, Katniss looks up at her again and for a moment they just stare at each other. Johanna squints and seems to be studying Katniss until, eventually, she seems to decide she’s done with their stand-off and finally speaks.

“Ok, Everdeen,” Johanna starts as she sits up a little straighter in her side of the booth. “Time for a serious question now.”

Katniss steels herself for what is about to come. They had never talked about anything too serious, always just jokes and teasing with the occasional flirty comment. Judging from the look on the older woman’s face however, she really was serious.

“O-okay.” Katniss stutters.

Johanna flashes her an amused look. “What’s your zombie apocalypse plan?”

Katniss finds herself laughing and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, my what now?”

“Your zombie apocalypse plan. Everybody has one. A ‘How would I survive if a zombie apocalypse broke out?’ plan. I assume yours isn’t to just shove every zombie you encounter into some bushes.”

Katniss smiles down at her piece of pizza and gives it some thought. “Well I’d probably run off into the woods and live off of the land I suppose.”

“Psh.” Johanna scoffs, “That’s everyone’s plan isn’t it? Find the nearest outdoor emporium, raid it for guns and supplies and go try to vanish into the mountains.” Katniss tries not to lose focus again as Johanna takes a large bite of her slice and licks the extra sauce off of the corner of her mouth.

“No.” Katniss smiles. “I don’t need guns or supplies, growing up my dad taught me how to make bows and hunt with them and how to forage for edible plants. So I think I’ll be able to handle myself.”

Johanna laughs at the younger girl’s matter-of-fact tone and reaches out to lightly touch Katniss’ hand.

“Well that’s very impressive.”

Katniss blushes and looks at Johanna. “And what about you? What is your ultimate zombie survival plan?”

“Oh that’s easy.” Johanna smirks at her and pauses to take a sip of her drink. “I’d probably find some abandoned truck somewhere and plow my way through the undead while I finally take that cross country road trip I’ve been wanting to take.” She ends the sentence with a wink and Katniss rolls her eyes.

“Oh well that’s very ‘Tallahassee’ of you.” Katniss laughs.

Johanna raises her eyebrows and laughs loudly. “I’m surprised you’ve seen Zombieland, Brainless.”

Katniss shakes her head and smirks. “I’ll have you know that despite my reactions to surprise zombie crawls, I very much enjoy a good zombie movie thank you very much.”

 

XXXX

 

After another hour or so of pizza, playful banter and ridiculous questions, Katniss and Johanna are walking back in the direction of Katniss’ school apartment building. After a few minutes of walking and talking about nothing in particular, Katniss works up the courage to take Johanna’s hand in hers. She’s so nervous she doesn’t notice the shy smirk from Johanna. All too soon, they arrive at the main door of Katniss’ building.

Johanna looks down at their hands and confidently smiles at Katniss. “Let me know the next time you need a study break, I’d be glad to help.”

“I’ll have to take you up on that offer.” Katniss replies. She can’t ignore the pull she feels toward the beautiful woman in front of her, or the fuzzy feeling in her stomach she gets when Johanna stares into her eyes like that. Before she knows it, she feels Johanna’s soft hand on her cheek and leans in with the shorter girl. She can feel the heat of Johanna’s lips close to her own and feels her breath ghosting across her lips. She takes one last look at Johanna’s lips before she closes her eyes. She’s pulled out of the moment when she hears Johanna speak.

“Goodnight, Katniss.” Katniss opens her eyes to see Johanna still wearing that beautiful smirk and watches as the older woman lifts their hands and places a slow kiss on the back of Katniss’ hand. With one last wink, she turns and walks away down the dark sidewalk. Katniss takes a long breath to steady herself and watches her walk away.

When she can’t see Johanna’s figure anymore, she walks into the building and up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. She doesn’t even notice her two roommates watching a movie in the living room until they speak up.

“Hello? Earth to Katniss?” Annie says loudly. She’s eating popcorn on the floor with her back to the couch where their third roommate, Madge, is sprawled out on her stomach. The three girls had been friends since high school and were lucky enough to secure an apartment together their sophomore year.

Katniss blankly stares at her two friends but can’t snap herself out of her daze. Her mind is swimming with thoughts of her almost-kiss with the raven-haired Johanna just minutes ago.

Madge sits up slightly and gives her friend a once over. “I take it you had a marvelous time?”

Katniss makes a quiet noise and starts down the hallway to her room, not even noticing the questions and innuendos her friends throw at her. She closes her door and throws herself onto her bed, screaming into her pillow and wondering how she’s going to be able to sleep when all she can think about is just how close she was to Johanna’s lips.


End file.
